May 26-29, Dr. Carole Bandy gave a poster presentation on "Rapid Reduction of PTSD in South African Students using Transcendental Meditation Practice" at the Association for Psychological Science Annual Conference in Chicago. The paper, in submission, demonstrates that the majority of students that learned Transcendental Meditation at the Maharishi Institute and meditated twice a day, became non-symptomatic during the 105 day testing period, whereas a non-TM control group of college students with PTSD at University of Johannesburg showed no improvements over the testing period.

The Journal of American Medical Association recently published a meta-analysis (August 4, 2016). This study summarized the results of published studies on the top two psychotherapy approaches and found that they only made one third of the Veterans with PTSD non-symptomatic. In contrast, this recent study on TM shows that with TM alone over 50% of the students with PTSD became non-symptomatic within a bit over 3 months. As with all studies on TM and PTSD, there was already a dramatic reduction in symptoms at 15 days.

Lindiwe Bayana, a South African college student, talks about how Transcendental Meditation (TM) reduced traumatic stress: Before Transcendental Meditation, my life was complicated and I could not think straight. Everything was heavy. I had dreams but no strength to work on them.I was angry all of the time, screaming about everything. Stress was my middle name. It was so difficult to cope with pressure and I had low self-esteem. Fortunately, TM was introduced in my life from the beginning of this school year. TM is a practice of meditation for gaining inner peace, inner rest, silence.After 3 months of practicing TM, I found peace within myself. I stopped screaming for no reason when it is unnecessary. The problem of headaches I had had just vanished after I started TM. Now I am always energetic and full of confidence.TM has helped me to cope with the stress and now I can work under pressure without any problem. TM is helping a lot. If I can tell someone to do anything, I would advise them to do this technique.

African PTSD Relief is a project of PTSD Relief Now, a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable corporation. African PTSD Relief collaborates with the David Lynch Foundation (DLF), a 501(c)(3). DLF directs all donations restricted to African PTSD Relief to PTSD Relief Now projects in and for Africa.